True Celebration Cannot Be According to the Calendar

“Do you hear the firecrackers outside? Have you ever thought about why, all over the world, in every culture, in every society, there are a few days in the year for celebration? These few days for celebration are just a compensation – because these societies have taken away all celebration in your life, and if nothing is given to you in compensation, your life can become a danger to the culture. Every culture has to give some compensation to you so that you don’t feel completely lost in misery, in sadness. But these compensations are false.

“These firecrackers outside and these lights outside cannot make you rejoice. They are only for children; for you, they are just a nuisance. But in your inner world there can be a continuity of lights, songs, joys. Always remember that society compensates you when it feels that the repressed may explode into a dangerous situation if it is not compensated. Society finds some way of allowing you to let out the repressed. But this is not true celebration, and it cannot be true.

“True celebration should come from your life, in your life.

“And true celebration cannot be according to the calendar, that on the first of November you will celebrate. Strange, the whole year you are miserable and on the first of November suddenly you come out of misery, dancing. Either, the misery is false, or the first of November is false; both cannot be true. And once the first of November has gone, you are back in your dark hole, everybody in his misery, everybody in his anxiety.

“Life should be a continual celebration, a festival of lights the whole year round. Only then can you grow up, can you blossom.

“Transform small things into celebration. For example, in Japan they have the tea ceremony. In every Zen monastery and in every person’s house who can afford it, they have a small temple for drinking tea. Now, tea is no longer an ordinary, profane thing; they have transformed it into a celebration. The temple for drinking tea is made in a certain way – in a beautiful garden, with a beautiful pond; swans in the pond, flowers all around. Guests come and they have to leave their shoes outside. It is a temple.

“And as you enter the temple, you cannot speak; you have to leave your thinking and thoughts and speech outside with your shoes. You sit down in a meditative posture. And the host, the lady who prepares tea for you – her movements are so graceful, as if she is dancing, moving around preparing tea, putting cups and saucers before you as if you are gods. With such respect… she will bow down, and you will receive it with the same respect.

“The tea is prepared in a special samovar which makes beautiful sounds, a music of its own. And it is part of the tea ceremony that everybody should listen first to the music of the tea. So everybody is silent, listening… birds chirping outside in the garden, and the samovar… the tea is creating its own song. A peace surrounds. “When the tea is ready and it is poured into everybody’s cup, you are not just to drink it the way people are doing everywhere. First you will smell the aroma of the tea. You will sip the tea as if it has come from the beyond, you will take time – there is no hurry. Somebody may start playing on the flute or on the sitar. An ordinary thing – just tea – and they have made it a beautiful religious festival, and everybody comes out of it nourished, fresh, feeling younger, feeling juicier. And what can be done with tea can be done with everything: with your clothes, with your food.

“People are living almost in sleep; otherwise, every fabric, every cloth has its own beauty, its own feel. If you are sensitive, then the clothing is not just to cover your body; then it is something expressing your individuality, something expressing your taste, your culture, your being. Everything that you do should be expressive of you; it should have your signature on it. Then life becomes a continuous celebration.”